Germain Lussier wrote:This is where Ghostbusters 3 becomes the new Ghostbusters, which in recent weeks has been officially (but quietly) retitled by Sony as Ghostbusters: Answer the Call, to differentiate it from the original film.

so putting ECTO-1 and Slimer and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and as many original cast member cameos as possible in there, and proton packs, and a firehouse, and identical uniforms, were also part of this strategy to "differentiate" the film, i suppose?

Answer The Call is a stupid tagline/title/whatever. especially since no one was calling for this film in the first place, there was nothing to answer. they shoulda called it Ghostbusters: Let The Call Go To Voicemail Then Delete It A Few Days Later Without Listening To It

Russ Burlingame wrote:It's been a while since plans for a sequel to this year's controversial Ghostbusters reboot were reportedly scuttled because of its middling box office draw wasn't as much as Sony hoped to make from their tentpole comedy franchise -- and now original Ghostbusters filmmaker Ivan Reitman, who produced the all-female version, is opening up about the future of the franchise.

...Just, you know...not the sequel.

During a recent podcast interview, the veteran director/producer was quizzed about the future of Ghostbusters 2, teased at the end of the new Ghostbusters, which would presumably see the team face off against agents of Gozer (as the original movie did).

After being asked specifically about that film, Reitman answered more generally.

"There's going to be many other Ghostbusters movies, they're just in development right now,"

There are pervasive rumors that the film wasn't enough of a hit to guarantee a follow-up, and may have lost as much as $70 million after the cost of promotion.

For its part, Sony disputes that $70 million number and says that losses have been extremely exaggerated.

"This loss calculation is way off," says the Sony rep. "With multiple revenue streams, including consumer products, gaming, location-based entertainment, continued international rollout, and huge third-party promotional partnerships that mitigated costs, the bottom line, even before co-financing, is not remotely close to that number."

Gregg Kilday wrote:The star of the original movie said Feig, who helmed the 2016 reboot, spent too much, making a sequel economically unfeasible.

Taking aim at director Paul Feig, Dan Aykroyd said Sunday that there will be no sequel to last year’s Ghostbusters reboot because Feig spent too much money shooting the film and that “he will not be back on the Sony lot anytime soon.”

Appearing on the morning talk show Sunday Brunch on Britain’s Channel 4, Aykroyd, who co-wrote and starred in the original 1984 Ghostbusters and is credited as an executive producer on the remake, didn’t mention Feig by name, but said, “The director, he spent too much on it and he didn’t shoot scenes we suggested to him. Several scenes that were going to be needed, he said, ‘No, we don’t need them.’ And then we tested the movie and they needed them, and he had to go back — about $30 to $40 million in reshoots.”

However, one source close to the production countered Aykroyd's claims, saying, "the studio had an incredible relationship with the director, who was first-rate," and adding that reshoots cost about $3-4 million.

The film, which cost a reported $144 million, grossed just $229.1 million worldwide.

Kevin Jagernauth wrote:With Dan Aykroyd dropping his truth about last year’s “Ghostbusters” reboot, now it’s time for franchise co-founder Ivan Reitman to weigh in. Unlike his partner in all things comically supernatural, Reitman isn’t here to kick Paul Feig‘s movie, but is instead looking to the future. And because we live in a world where #branding is key for almost every major cinematic property, the idea being tossed around is to take “Ghostbusters” global.

In an interview with Super News Live, Reitman shared his vision for the franchise, and it’s not bad one, as he sees “Ghostbusters” teams in all corners of the globe, fighting spectres that are unique to their setting.

“What we’ve been doing a lot of is thinking about the franchise rights for ‘Ghostbusters.’ Because ‘Ghostbusters,’ that idea doesn’t have to just take place in New York, it can happen over the world. I think it would be really cool to see Korean ghosts or Chinese ghosts. All those great traditions in the world have all these tales and things those people are afraid of. To have a sort of local group of Ghostbusters that tie with the head office in New York would be fun,” he said.

Again, that’s an interesting concept both creatively and financially (global box office receipts are more important than ever), so it’ll be curious to see how that develops. As for the proton pack heroes of the current films, Reitman wants to see them actually come together (as you’ll recall, the original cast of “Ghostbusters” cameoed in the reboot, but as different characters).

“We’re doing a lot of work about where do we go next with ‘Ghostbusters.’ I think one thing that fans have clearly wanted, and so did I, that somehow we tie the worlds together. I think it was a little awkward that it wasn’t connected, and we certainly heard a lot from everybody out there. So I would definitely want to connect to all of that,” Reitman shared.

i finally watched this film. i give the filmmakers credit on this one: very rarely does a film actually live up to what the trailers and ads promise. the trailers and ads for this film promised a horrible, unfunny, derivative "reboot" of ghostbusters, and that's exactly what they delivered. in fact, they may have actually undersold just how terrible and completely lacking in humor this film was. honestly, i was expecting to laugh at least once or twice... the law of averages seems to dictate that, simply through the mechanism of spontaneous generation, one or two jokes would accidentally spawn during the process of filming. nope. i think i may have chuckled lightly 2 or 3 times. at a run-time of (a very bloated-feeling) 2 hours, that averages to about one minor chuckle per 40 minutes. not a great ratio for a supposed "comedy". it's so bad, they even managed to make Bill Murray unfunny.

this cast is capable of being funny. melissa mccarthy and leslie jones just play toned down versions of themselves. kate mckinnon plays the geeky/weird Egon character who's not nearly as geeky or as weird (and definitely not as funny) as the real Egon. and kristen wiig is the straight man. all these people can be funny in the right circumstances. this film gives them nothing to do. the plot, to what extent there is one, is just a rehash of things that happened in the original GB I and II, including the surge in ghostly activity, the media reaction to the GB exploits (most of which seems to have been reshot to reflect the online response to their first trailer), the nerdy guy helping to bring about the apocalypse, the gov't baddies trying to shut the GB down, etc. there is not one original idea in this film.

about the only good thing i can say about this movie is that at least they had the class to not force a dead Harold Ramis cameo into this thing. at least not one that i noticed. so there's that: congratulations on going 2 hours without putting dead Harold Ramis in your shitty movie. otherwise, this film is a complete turd that basically shits (or should i say, slimes) all over the legacy of the original film.

for all their complaints about sexism leading up to the release of this movie, the irony is there is probably more "woman-hating misogyny" in the script than there ever was in most of the negative comments toward the film. i mean, whichever writer was responsible for the running gag of kristen wiig getting slimed, repeatedly, over and and over throughout the movie, must have a massive collection of bukkake videos hidden away on his computer somewhere.

TheBaxter wrote:for all their complaints about sexism leading up to the release of this movie, the irony is there is probably more "woman-hating misogyny" in the script than there ever was in most of the negative comments toward the film.

Let's be honest for a second here: there WAS a lot of "woman-hating misogyny" directed at the stars of this film. Maybe some people who just thought it looked like crap got unfairly lumped into that crowd, but the comments on YouTube were disabled for a reason, not to mention what Milo Yiannapolous and his Pepe followers did to Leslie Jones.

TheBaxter wrote:for all their complaints about sexism leading up to the release of this movie, the irony is there is probably more "woman-hating misogyny" in the script than there ever was in most of the negative comments toward the film.

Let's be honest for a second here: there WAS a lot of "woman-hating misogyny" directed at the stars of this film. Maybe some people who just thought it looked like crap got unfairly lumped into that crowd, but the comments on YouTube were disabled for a reason, not to mention what Milo Yiannapolous and his Pepe followers did to Leslie Jones.

there was plenty of sexism and racism directed towards them. there was also plenty of sexism and racism directed towards the force awakens, the fantastic four, the avengers, the walking dead, harry potter films, pretty much anything that has existed in pop culture this millenium. GB was the only one where the producers and stars tried to paint ALL pre-release criticism and negativity as being driven by sexism and then use their victimization to sell tickets.

the internet is full of racist, sexist trolls: surprise! they're a very vocal minority who attack anything with women, racial minorities or Dumbledore people in them to make themselves feel big and important and get people to pay attention to them. the same people who are now attacking the new Star Trek show for having non-white female lead characters. they deserve to be called out, but they also shouldn't be given more importance than they warrant. the vast majority of the crap being thrown at this film before it was released was due to the pathetically unfunny trailers and ads for a franchise that a lot of people didn't want to see remade in the first place, at least not without the involvement of the original stars, and had nothing to do with the genders or races of the film's actors. but the filmmakers chose to cynically accuse everyone who said anything bad about their film of being sexist. in doing so, they did more to set back feminism and female-driven blockbuster filmmaking than anything those actual sexist trolls ever did. i mean, sure TFA was a huge hit, and now a female-directed female-starring film like wonder woman is the biggest DC film ever, but the producers would have us believe that GB totally failed because audiences are too sexist, and not because remaking ghostbusters was a horrible idea with even worse execution. if anything, WW proved the point: it's not sexism among the audience or fanboys that is holding back female directors and female actors and female-driven films, it's the sexism of writers, producers, studio executives and the rest of the film industry.

TheBaxter wrote:. the vast majority of the crap being thrown at this film before it was released was due to the pathetically unfunny trailers and ads for a franchise that a lot of people didn't want to see remade in the first place, at least not without the involvement of the original stars, and had nothing to do with the genders or races of the film's actors. but the filmmakers chose to cynically accuse everyone who said anything bad about their film of being sexist. in doing so, they did more to set back feminism and female-driven blockbuster filmmaking than anything those actual sexist trolls ever did. i mean, sure TFA was a huge hit, and now a female-directed female-starring film like wonder woman is the biggest DC film ever, but the producers would have us believe that GB totally failed because audiences are too sexist, and not because remaking ghostbusters was a horrible idea with even worse execution. if anything, WW proved the point: it's not sexism among the audience or fanboys that is holding back female directors and female actors and female-driven films, it's the sexism of writers, producers, studio executives and the rest of the film industry.

Andrew Dyce wrote:The 2016 Ghostbusters reboot may not have been the jumpstart to the franchise that Sony hoped it wold be, but fans may only have to wait until 2019 for another Ghostbusters feature. That’s according to Ivan Reitman, director of the original two movies and producer of the recent all-female reboot, who clarifies that the future of the series is still moving forward at a healthy pace. He may have raised some eyebrows when he promised a ‘Ghostbusters shared universe’ of films despite the disappointing box office of the reboot, but his claim that a new movie is expected to release around Summer 2019 seems far more resolved.

Reitman offered the confirmation to fans attending San Diego Comic-Con during a panel focused on all things Ghostbusters (ranging from the films to comics and even Ninja Turtles crossovers). Reiterating the fact that he was overseeing development of both live-action and animated Ghostbusters movies, Reitman told those in attendance when they could expect to see one hit theaters – and why the date would have some significance.

For those who may not know, the original Ghostbusters hit theaters to surprise success starting in June of 1984. That means that the Summer of 2019 will mark the 35-year anniversary of Reitman’s original comedic hit – and when asked if the studio had any celebrations in mind for fans, Reitman claimed that a feature film was being planned to honor the occasion:

“Well, the studio is working on some really nice things. First of all, I can’t believe the movie is still playing and being watched so assiduously… and I can’t believe I’m so old. Yeah, I think there’s going to be a lot of fun, a lot of special things. We’re going to try to tie one of our films close to that date.”

For those who believe, like Reitman, that the Ghostbusters franchise is too strong a premise to be sidelined by a single perceived misfire, that claim seems like the producer backing up his claims that “many” more Ghostbuster movies were being developed. Yet for those who felt it a bit more likely that the 2016 reboot halted plans for a new series, and turned attention to an animated Ghostbusters instead, the release date Reitman is “trying” to make may be more optimism for the fans’ sake.

It’s worth pointing out that while Reitman had only kind words for the cast and creators of the 2016 reboot – unlike Dan Aykroyd’s criticism of Ghostbusters and its director – he stopped short of confirming whether the planned 2019 movie would be the animated feature, or live-action. And if live-action, whether it would continue with the cast of Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones… or start fresh (again).

Whatever the case, we won’t have to wait much longer to find out. Assuming the film is being planned for release in the Summer of 2019, then word of a writer, director, and cast to follow should be coming soon. Let us know your hopes for a creative team, returning or new faces, and whether it may be best to avoid the mistakes of the previous reboot!

when will these people get it through their heads? Ghostbusters is not a "franchise"... it was one hugely popular and successful film. everything else ghostbusters-related has been middling at best. GB II was unfunny and boring. the GB cartoon was... a cartoon. last year's reboot was a travesty.

not everything needs to be a franchise, or is cut out to be a franchise. the original GB caught lightning in a bottle, and nothing related to it since has been able to recapture that magic. time to move on, guys.

I submit that the animated series are better than any of the big screen sequels, so in that sense you could say the property is a "franchise", and honestly they should have pursued the animated route for a big screen comeback

Peven wrote:I submit that the animated series are better than any of the big screen sequels, so in that sense you could say the property is a "franchise", and honestly they should have pursued the animated route for a big screen comeback

i never watched the cartoon, it may well have been better than the sequels (almost surely couldn't be worse than the last one), but a successful animated series doesn't automatically translate to a movie franchise. if so, then i eagerly await my pac-man movie trilogy... maybe in a shared universe with donkey kong, q-bert and centipede.